


Voice of the Machine

by PouncySilverkitten



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Allura and Shaun are their doctors, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Future mentions of abuse, Gen, Kima is their ward mum, Mental Institution, The SHITs are not healthy, of all kinds - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:46:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23926363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PouncySilverkitten/pseuds/PouncySilverkitten
Summary: Percival Fredrickstein von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III used to be a genius. Now, he’s checking himself into a mental hospital. What could go wrong?
Comments: 2
Kudos: 44





	Voice of the Machine

Percival Fredrickstein von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III used to be a genius.

Now he stared dully out the window of the car as it pulled up at the white building which looked, to his jaded eye, to be verging on the dilapidated. “How ridiculous that they’re housing patients here,” he murmured, taking in the paint peeling from the window frames, the weeds growing between the cracks in the paving stones waving in the warm summer’s breeze. “It’s hardly an environment conducive to establishing a sense of self-worth, is it?” The wan shadows cast by the lacklustre, half-overcast sun only served to accentuate the flaws, lengthening and darkening them until every flake of paint or swaying stalk looked like a scar.

The view stopped moving, and a moment later the driver jerked her thumb towards the building.

“Out here, mate.”

“Really.” Percy said drily, though his tone was more a reflex than anything else. Hauling himself out the door in an unfamiliar jumble of limbs, he sent up a sardonic prayer of thanks to his sedatives, which had buried any semblance of co-ordination he might once have had in the same shallow grave it had dug for his raw despair. 

Reaching back, he pulled his rucksack out after him, as driver dumped his suitcase unceremoniously at his feet before pulling away.

“Well then.” He pushed his glasses up his nose and looked at the letters above the door. _Vergessen Wing_. “Forgotten, eh? That’s not at all ominous.” He pulled his faded blue coat about him, slung his rucksack over one hand and picked up his suitcase in the other. Just slightly off-centre, three stone steps spread in a half-circle centered on the double doors of the main entrance down to the ground. and climbed the three steps up the facade.

The interior wasn’t much better. A single pane of wire glass separated a secretary’s office from the vestibule, presumably intended to give administrative staff who didn’t understand the difference between suicidal ideation and psychotic episodes an illusion of safety. Behind it, a dumpy middle-aged nurse sat looking blankly at an antiquated computer monitor as Percy set his suitcase down and donned a Bakelite smile.

“Percival Fre-“ he began, only to be met by possibly the most condescending voice he’d ever heard in his life, the sort of voice that belonged to someone who thought ‘five a day’ referred to packs of cigarettes, rather than fruit and vegetables, and who probably offered biting insight into the latest developments on _The X Factor_ with their hairdresser.

“Just a moment, dear.”

Bristling, Percy drew himself up to his full height, then slumped back down, fingers of his left hand drumming against the notebook in the pocket of his coat. Idly, he pulled it out, leafing past increasingly erratic hand-writing and far-flung, ill-conceived design diagrams until he got to the most recent entry, barely meriting the name.

 _Conthsen 22nd_ , it read, then below it a neat arrow. _- > Vergessen, 10am._

Idly, he flicked the slender fountain pen out of its home in the spiral binding, waving it back and forth in his fingers, before uncapping it, nib poised over the thick ivory paper.

“Can I help you?” The voice was just as grating the second time around, but Percy breathed a minute sigh of relief, capping the pen and sliding it home.

“Percival Fredrickstein von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III.” He brightened the smile a notch further. “Here to check myself in.”

“Uh-huh.” The woman still hadn’t looked at him, but she slid a battered clipboard with an intake form on it across the desk. “Fill that in, please.”

Percy pulled his pen back out, laying the biro the clipboard had come with - were those bite marks on the barrel? He shuddered - on the desk, and scanned the form.

 _Name, date of birth, date, reason for admission, medical history, referring doctors..._ He started scribbling down the answers to questions that had been asked all too often recently.

By the time he’d filled out all three pages, his handwriting a little messier than usual, the cramp in his fingers was getting irritable. He gave it another quick once-over, abandoned it half-way through, and slid the whole thing back over.

“Here you go.”

“M-hmm.” The woman took it, sliding a cardboard box across the desk. “Belt, shoelaces, necklaces, earphones, anything else in there.”

“Really.” Percy’s voice was flat. “You think a pair of cheap earphones could hold my violently jerking weight for three minutes?”

“It’s just so we don’t have anyone trying to hurt themselves, dear.” The woman said, absent-mindedly.

“Yes, no, I had understood t- you know what, never mind.” Percy stalked over to the single uncomfortable-looking chair and sat down, unlacing his boots. His belt went next, then the plain silver chain that hung around his neck with his father’s signet ring. He debated the tie for a moment, but decided not to risk it, placing that in as well.

As he stood, boots distractingly loose on his feet, a scrawny man - who couldn’t have been much older than himself and _certainly_ couldn’t have restrained him - in scrubs and possibly the ugliest trainers Percy had ever seen rounded the corner.

“Percival?”

“Percy.” He extended a hand, Bakelite smile flashing onto his face again. “It’s a pleasure.”

“Follow me, please.”

Percy stooped to grab his suitcase, but the... nurse? Orderly? Percy wasn’t sure what to call him - shook his head.

“You can leave your bags. Someone will collect them and take them to your room.”

“I... oh, fine.” It was, he reflected, probably the first of innumerable indignities to come. “Very well.”

He was led to what must have been a stunningly underused room; though there were easily a dozen small tables set out with chairs around them, most were covered in dust.

One was clean though, and at it sat a woman, dressed almost identically to the man who’d led him in.

“Hi, Percival. Have a seat.”

“Thank you. Please, call me Percy.”

The woman nodded. “I’m Nurse Yennen, this -“ she gestured to the man who had led Percy in - “is Nurse Desnay. Welcome to Vergessen.”

“Thank you.” Percy settled into the indicated chair as best he could, pulling out his notebook and pen, flipping to a new page and titling it _Intake Process_.

“How are you today?”

“Oh, about the usual for committing myself to a mental hospital.” Even he could feel his smile was wan. “I confess to having a not inconsiderable dose of diazepam taking the edge off.”

The nurses exchanged looks. “Is that prescribed, or...” Desnay asked, leaning forwards.

Percy had to bite his tongue at the implication. _Why yes, please, let me confess to an illegal drug habit during intake, and would you be interested in hearing about the knuckledusters I hid in my satchel?_ “No, no. You’ll see on the intake form I listed it as a prescribed medication, alongside the venlafaxine and the failing hope in chemical interventions.”

“Good.” If his joke had been noticed, it definitely flopped. “So, you’ll need to see a doctor either tonight or tomorrow. Which floor are you on?”

Percy shrugged.

“Three.” Desnay supplied. “So it’ll be Doctor Vysoren.”

“Tonight, we’ll give you your normal venlafaxine, but Doctor Vysoren will have to review that.”

Percy nodded. _A doctor, reviewing my medications? Surely not. Whatever next, a nurse asking how I’m feeling today?_

The nurses continued rattling through all their intake procedure - Percy noted dully that half the questions they asked were on the form he’d filled out, but why bother wasting a nurse’s time reading when they could just grill him, he supposed.

“Any questions?” Desnay asked, jolting Percy from the reverie he’d been in while answering the endless questions on automatic.

“What happens now?”

The nurses exchanged looks again.

“We’ll get you supplied with some clothes and take you up to your room. Once you’re up there you’ll get to meet the people you’ll be sharing the floor with.”

“Excellent.” Percy spread his hands wide on the table. “I assume you’re going to want to take my pen away. Metal nib and all.”

“You’ll be able to earn it back.” Yennen said.

“Fine. Could I be issued a replacement, a felt-tip or something?” Percy let his gaze bore into Yennen for a little longer than might’ve been strictly necessary. “The journaling is a coping mechanism, you understand.”

“That should be fine. I’ll get you one on the way up.”

“Obliged.” Percy turned and headed for the door, holding it open for the nurses. In passing, he noted that his bags had gone from the hall.

“This way.” Desnay said, turning away from the main door. Percy followed as they headed away from the main door towards a lift.

“Hanging in there?” He asked as the doors slid open with a vaguely alarming grinding noise.

“Hmm? Oh, yes. Fine.” Percy pushed his glasses up his nose and stepped inside.

“Good. We’re heading to the third floor.” Desnay pushed the button. “I’m sure this feels like a lot, but you’ll get the hang of how we do things soon enough.”

“The joys.”

If the sardonic note in Percy’s voice registered, Desnay didn’t show it. “You won’t have phone privileges at first, but if you want to give me a name and number I can call them and let you know you’ve arrived.”

Finally, the lift jolted to a stop, the doors grinding open in a way that made the engineering hairs on Percy’s forearms stand on end. “That won’t be necessary, but thank you.”

“Sure.” That didn’t elicit any reaction from Desnay either, who stepped out of the hall and called “Kima?”

Percy followed him out, to be confronted with a tiny blonde woman who looked like she could probably stop a speeding lorry with a look.

“Kima, this is Percy. Percy, this is Kima. She’s the head nurse on this floor.”

“Percy.” Kima flashed him a warm smile and shook his offered hand with a grip that left Percy wondering if she wrestled alligators for fun. “Nice to meet you.”

“Thank you.”

“Thanks, Archie. I’ve got it from here.”

 _Archie_? Percy wondered, but the look on Desnay’s face as he turned back to the elevator told him all he needed to know, and he filed the name away for future reference. _Archie_.

“Right, Percy. Let’s get you some clothes.”

Percy nodded. “And a pen, please. I’m reliably informed my fountain pen makes me a danger to myself and others on the scale rarely seen on this or any other mental health ward.”

Kima laughed. “Well, they do say the pen is mightier than the sword.”

“True.” Percy grinned - an actual honest to gods grin, he realised, not a sardonic mockery of one.

Kima opened a cupboard door with a key from her belt and pulled out a stack of grey fabric. “Here you go, this should be your size. Not quite Vogue, I’m afraid, but we’re on a budget.”

“Terrific.” Percy accepted the pile with considerable apprehension. “Where should I change?”

“Your room’s down here.” Kima set off down the hall again. “You’ll be sharing, but I’ll let your roomie make introductions. They’re all in group just now.”

 _Group_. The word conjured images of a circle of chairs inhabited by the dregs of humanity. Not a group Percy cared to imagine himself a part of.

“Actually, look.” Kima stopped in front of a barred window, pointing. The sun had strengthened since Percy had arrived, and as he followed Kima’s gaze he saw a group on a basketball court, an energetic game of three-on-three. “There they are.”

“That’s group?”

“Why?” Kima turned to him. “Were you expecting to sit in a dark room listening to people mumbling about how terrible their life is?”

Percy flushed. “Are you allowed to say that sort of thing?”

“Not really.” Kima shrugged. “But it’s good to challenge preconceived notions of what life here is like. Anyway, Shaun and the kids should be done in about twenty minutes, you’ll meet them then.”

“The kids?” The image of sharing a room with a raucous teenager made Percy consider gouging his own eyes out.

“Oh, they’re all your age, give or take.” Kima flashed him another smile. “But they call me Mum a lot. So I call them the kids.”

“I... see.” _Mum_.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to be upset if you don’t.” Percy chided himself for being so transparent. “But I don’t expect you to call me Nurse Vord. I’m Kima, the doc is Allura, and Shaun leads the group stuff.”

“Allura and Shaun.” Two more names to be noted.

“Anyway. This is your room.” Kima knocked twice. “I’ll let you get changed.”

“Thank you.”

“We don’t do locks, but don’t worry. There’s a pretty good culture of knocking.” Kima turned to him. “I’ll wait out here to get your clothes.”

Percy pulled the door open and sauntered inside. “Thank you.” The room was a decent size and laid out in a mirror image; beds against the walls, bedside tables next to them, a barred window between with a chest of drawers underneath. The only thing breaking the illusion of reflection was the pile of gym magazines and... were they _lingerie_ catalogues? - on one bedside table.

Percy laid out the pile of clothes he’d been given on what he assumed was his bed; a grey hoodie, grey t-shirt, grey trousers, white boxers and socks. _Vogue it is not, Kima. You’re quite right._

None of it fitted too well; the shirt actually made his shoulders look more like a coat hanger than a human body, but at that point it was irrelevant, he thought. It would take a Dawnfather to make these clothes look good.

Folding his shirt and waistcoat neatly, he stacked them on top of his trousers and newly laceless boots. There was a pang of regret as he took his notebook from his coat and folded it, too. He’d couldn’t remember the last time he’d been without it.

“Kima.” He called, picking up the pile, and almost instantly, there was a double knock. “Come in.”

“Thank you.” She took his pile of clothes, slipping them into a bag. “Do you have your pen there?”

Reluctantly, he held it out, only to feel it replaced with a black marker.

“Okay.” She gave him a bright smile. “Shall we continue the tour?”

“Actually-“ Percy cleared his throat. “Would it be all right if I was alone for a bit? Or is that forbidden too?”

She looked him over, and for the first time in years Percy felt what being on the other side of his own stare must be like.

“I’m, uh. I’m just tired. Didn’t sleep very well.”

Kima nodded, her eyes never leaving his.

“Can I trust you, Percy?”

He looked back, trying to get a sense of her. But beyond her friendliness, there was something he couldn’t even begin to fathom.

“I’d very much appreciate it if you did.”

“Not what I asked.” But she smiled more brightly at him. “I do trust you. Don’t make me look like an idiot.”

“I can only try.” He did his best to return her smile, and she backed out the door without another word, leaving him to sit on the bed.

He tried to relax, he really did. But despite the frequent dull aches from his much-abused shoulders and lower back, he couldn’t help perching on the very edge of his mattress, one elbow on his knee with fingers splayed under his notebook as he hunched over it, sketching out what little he’d seen of the floor plan so far.

That only took him so long, and when he couldn’t eke any more hair-thin lines of ink out of the image without resorting to his imagination he flipped back to a design from a few months back, trying to sort a particularly intractable problem of kinematics.

He spent what felt like the better part of forever looking through it, writing out pages of equations. But no matter what approach he used, what angle he came at it from, the solution was always dancing away from him, hiding itself behind more complications, more layers of fog.

“Congratulations, Percy.” He sighed, sardonically. “You’re the world’s first ex-genius.”

A sound in the hallway caught his attention; a shift in the light under the door followed it.. Cursing himself for getting so drawn into his work, Percy stood, going to slide the notebook into his coat pocket before forgetting and putting it on the table instead.

The door swung open, but rather than another pair of mindless scrubs filling the space, it was a huge guy, easily six-six and built to match, wearing a pair of shorts and a tank top. Next to him was a slight girl about the same age as the brick shithouse, white hair flowing off her head with an effect that looked uncannily like a halo under the fluorescing of the lights, dressed in... was that linen? Whatever it was, the tunic and trouser combination suited her.

Percy mentally revised upwards the standards he could hold the place to, taking some comfort in the fact that at least he wasn’t going to be forced into What The Fashionable Inpatient Was Wearing forever.

“Well, are you gonna stand there staring all day?” Asked the mountain, his voice so deep Percy could have sworn that it shook the bars of the window behind him. “I mean, I understand I’m an imp- impos- _big_ guy, but-“

“Grog!” The girl shot him a look, and the man looked down, immediately remorseful. “Sorry, excuse my friend. I’m Pike, this is Grog.”

“Pike.” Percy started forwards, shaking her offered hand. “And Grog. A pleasure.”

“Hey, Scanlan! Come and meet- oh, uh, what’s your name?”

“Percival Fredrickstein von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III.” Percy supplied wearily.

“Uh, yeah. Percy von Fredrickstein de boh de blah de skittles and balls and ass.”

“ _Grog_!” Pike whispered, but Percy smiled and waved a hand.

“No, to be fair, I think I probably walked into that. Oh, hi.”

A stocky vision in purple strutted up, what looked to be a beret in one hand, the other outstretched.

“Hi, hello, welcome. I’m Scanlan, I’m sort of the leader here.” It was a voice that sounded like it got a lot of use, and Percy gave him a wary look.

“I...see. It’s a pleasure.”

“Scanlan.” Pike was quickly establishing herself as the mum of the group in Percy’s eyes. “I’m sorry, he’s not the leader, he’s just an arrogant fuckwit. This is Keyleth, by the way.”

Keyleth was slight and pale and red headed and appeared almost from nowhere; she had a smudge of dirt on her nose and a look in her eyes that Percy thought he recognised. Another heir to a family empire? “Um, hi, hello, welcome, it’s nice to have you.”

“I...” Percy took a moment to unpack that. “Thank you, I think.”

“Hey, I’m Vax. This is Vex.” As if by magic, another pair appeared next to Pike and Grog. It was the man who had spoken, Percy was pretty sure, but the similarity was uncanny; both wore black jeans and faded band tees, both had long dark hair, and they even held themselves the same way.

“We’re twins.” The girl said.

“Really? Thank you for clarifying, I could have sworn I was seeing double.” There were a few chuckles. _Tough crowd._

“See?” The girl nudged her brother. “I told you he sounded fun.” Then she turned back to Percy, fixing him in place with the full force of her grin. “Welcome to floor three, darling.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Many many thanks to dichromaniac, both for beta reading and offering valuable insight into what Tal’Dorei mental institution intake processes might look like.
> 
> The gang in floor three aren’t healthy, which shouldn’t surprise anyone. In future there will definitely be mentions of past abuse, of many different kinds. I’ll leave TWs at the top of each chapter though!


End file.
